Solar-powered Wave Glider robot tracks down sharks

The hunter becomes the hunted – but in a good way, of course. I am referring to this solar-powered robot created by scientists, where it will harness the power of the sun to keep it going, while it will do its job to track down sharks in order to keep tabs on their travel patterns as well as remaining numbers in the wild. Teams of scientists from Stanford University and Hopkins Marine Station in Monterey Bay have spent the better part of their lives tagging and tracking sharks so that they can better figure out these magnificent beasts’ mysterious migration patterns.

With the solar-powered Wave Glider robots, these self-propelling automatons which resemble somewhat like surfboards, will be able to track any tagged shark which might happen to swim within a thousand feet of it – and the moment it detects our finned friend doing so, the Wave Glider that picked up the shark’s signal will notify the closest laboratory on land immediately. The goal of this army of Wave Gliders? To rely on revolutionary technology which increases the research team’s capacity to observe our oceans.

Wave Gliders have also been used measure the impact of oil spills as well in the past, making it one of the more versatile robots that benefit humanity to date.